Divine Gate

Every season, you’ll have at least one anime that is terrible and has a good amount of people watching it. This season, it’s Divine Gate. There are anime that no words can describe them. Divine Gate fall into that category, not because it’s good, but because it’s halfheartedly made that I can’t explain how lazy it is. Its narrative is uninteresting, the characters are outrageously poorly-written, and the plot is all over the place. When the best thing about your anime is the OP, you know there’s something wrong with that anime. It’s better off as smartphone game, because the anime is nothing short of ... pretentious.

~{Story}~
The premise about some large organization or something that wants to find something called the “Divine Gate”, which is apparently a myth. They need to find the gate for the sake of finding the gate… nothing more. A bunch of teenagers were chosen to find the gate, because it’s definitely a smart idea to send kids to find something hard, instead of adults. The premise isn’t anything special, however they could have gone somewhere from here, but unfortunately no. The execution is extremely poor. The plot twists, if you can even call them one, are pathetically written. I couldn’t care less about what was going on in this anime. Every time I watched an episode, it felt like I missed an episode since it feels all over the place. And there’s so many things that were left unresolved that it’s ridiculous. It better not get a second season, because I rather have a terrible anime with loose ends, rather than a terrible anime with twice the content. And the funniest thing is that Divine Gate is filled with info dumps, yet, so many things weren’t even properly explained. What the hell is the Divine Gate? Why did edgy MC-kun see it when he was little? Who the hell is that kid that follows MC-kun? Why do most characters wear clothes that match their hair? Was it some kind of trauma they got? Did they forget about MC’s brother at the end?
Story: 1.5/10

~{Presentation}~
I normally don’t want to call an anime pretentious because I don’t know what the studio were keeping in mind when making an anime, but I have a strong feeling that Divine Gate is definitely pretentious. The anime tries so, so, SO hard in making it looks edgy and dark. It only took 5 minutes for me to realize that this is pretentious. That’s even longer than the time it took for me to realize Bubuki Buranki’s completely CGI. When an anime makes you laugh harder than KonoSuba when characters are dying, you know that there’s something wrong. That’s the only enjoyment I got from this anime – comedy. The flashbacks for characters are so poor. They just feel tragic for the sake of being tragic. The direction was so bad that had to search up whether or not Divine Gate was given a director. And even if it had a director, he either must be a goat or a newbie director. The director is actually someone who was called GOAT by some people for directing Bleach, Great Teacher Onizuka, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Kuroshitsuji’s better seasons. Abe-san, where did you go wrong?
Presentation: 1.5/10

~{Character}~
If you think that characters can be a redeeming point after all that, you’re wrong. The characters are so cliché, poor-written, and outrageously plot-device-y that you can’t help but cringe. The main character, Aoto, Is literally one of the most pretentious characters out there. He’s given such a tragic backstory just to make him a tragic character. When they showed his flashback, how he was treated like a dog by his parents while his brother was treated like a god, I laughed hard enough to almost suffocate myself. I wondered to myself am I just a sick, sadistic person, or is this anime so bad it’s funny? I guess it’s the latter. He’s so edgy that it feels like this anime is lighthearted. And his behavior is so damn inconsistent. For most of the part, he acts all gloomy and depressed, however, at times, he seems like his enjoying thing and he never went through that tragic past. What’s going on with that character? Then you have Akane, some dude with daddy issues for 80% of the anime, until suddenly in 1 minute, his personality changes to a daddy’s boy. Talk about sudden. And then you have Midori, some chick whose tragic past happens to do something with her best friend. Then you have other characters that you’ll never remember their names because it’s easier to call them by their hair color rather than searching them up online. There’s a moment in the anime where they introduce a large cast of characters and killed them off the next second. Am I supposed to be emotionally attached to these characters? I’m sure the main characters in this anime are attached so should I be too? When the anime ends and shows off their huge cast of characters’ normal lives, I wonder to myself… who the hell are these people? They’re that forgettable.
Character: 2/10

~{Art}~,
I don’t want to say the art is bad because Studio Pierrot is behind this anime, because they can do good stuff when they care. However, this anime’s art just felt lazy, and the studio tries to cover it up. The art style is really different, but that doesn’t make it better. It certainly makes the anime look more dark and edgy, and also pretentious at the same time. The shading and shadows are downright terrible. The shading should make the colors slowly get darker, not one color and then suddenly black. Look at the characters’ hair for example; it feels like shading it bitmapped onto their hair. The anime will have lighting directly pointed at shadows, but the shadows still remain. Do they even physics? And the backgrounds are pretty lame too. A lot of the time, they use a solid color with so shading. That’s it. Come on, even I can do better with MS Paint.
Art: 3.5/10

~{Animation}~
The animations aren’t too bad in Divine Gate. It’s not very good either. The action animations don’t impress at all. A lot of the fights are CGI heavy and they’re distracting since they’re not that well done. It can look really messy at times. And when they’re not using CGI during action scenes or fights, it just looks very unorganized and cruddy. The flow between frames are pretty bad. However, the normal scenes in Divine Gate don’t looks too bad. It’s not mind blowing, but it works. It’s sad that above average animation is one of the highlights of Divine Gate. However, this might just be one of Studio Pierrot’s laziest work… and that’s saying a whole lot about Divine Gate.
Animation: 5/10

~{Voice Acting}~
The voice acting in Divine Gate isn’t bad nor good, just average. Saito Soma does Aoto averagely. He’s able to make his character sound as edgy and pretentious as the script wants him to be. For most of the time, he sounded uninterested in his role and I don’t blame him. Kakihara Tetsuya does Akane, who does a better job than most of the other seiyuu in Divine Gate. He shouldn’t spent his talent on something else though. Then there’s Itou Kanae who does Midori, and she also does alright, but she did make her character feel irritating at times, but that might just be the scripts fault. Some really talented seiyuu, such as Ishida Akira and Nakamura Yuuichi, are in minor roles, which is disappointing because they can make the anime more enjoyable. Most of these seiyuu feel disinterested when voice acting probably because they also can’t feel for these character. However, the voice acting isn’t bad because at least it didn’t make my ears bleed, but the dialogues sure did (and that’s the presentation that’s lacking).
Voice Acting: 4/10

~{Music}~
Finally, the best part about Divine Gate – the OP. The OP, “one-Me two-Hearts”, isn’t just the best thing about this anime, but one of the best things about this season. The OP is a personal favorite of mine as it really makes my mood. However the rest of the episode doesn’t. Just listen to the OP, then drop this anime as if it’s hotter than the sun. The ED, “CONTRAST”, is alright. It’s nothing to special, but it doesn’t hurt when you listen to it. However, Divine Gate can never be good in a category as there’s one major flaw in its music, which is its background music. The background music is very lackluster and they don’t help to make scenes better, but only worse. When something emotional is happening, but instead you’re laughing, the music only adds to the comedy with its overdramatic music. Even the music is pretentious.
Music: 5/10

~{Enjoyment}~
If you’re wondering whether or not I enjoyed Divine Gate, how can you possibly think that after I barely said anything good about this anime. For half of the time, this anime feels so boring and makes you lose your purpose in life. For the other half of the time, makes you laugh, even though the anime doesn’t want you to. Divine Gate sets the standard high for overly pretentious and unnecessarily edgy anime. Every Friday I was excited to see the new Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu and Ajin episode, but Divine Gate always made my day bad. It’s not like this was destined to be bad. The premise can go somewhere, but the execution is just so, so poor that I couldn’t care less about the plot or characters.
Enjoyment: 1/10

In the end, Divine Gate is definitely not worth your time at all. Save yourself the pain and trouble by skipping this one from this season. The narrative is terrible as I didn’t even know what was going on for most of the time. The characters are tragic for the sake of being tragic and their behaviors are so inconsistent. The art style is just a way for the studio to hid their lazy work. This anime is one of the most pretentious (I used this work ten times so far for a reason) piece of entertainment. Search up the OP, listen to it, and never turn back. That’s the only thing you need from this anime.

+ The OP is really good and catchy
- Overly pretentious content that tries to be a tragedy but ends up being a comedy
- Characters are poorly written, inconsistent in their actions, and lack emotional impact.
- Narrative is uninteresting, all over the place, and leaves too many plot holes.
- Art style is pathetic and backgrounds and character designs are lazy.
- Overdramatic music just adds to the lameness.

Overall: 2.4/10

This show is great if you are looking for a show which will give you more questions than answers and will leave you debating if you should even put in the effort of watching the next episode.

Plot lines are rushed for example episode seven seemed to be three episodes squashed into one. Some characters are introduced and then almost completely dismissed while other character appear multiple times yet don't seem to have names.

All for a mediocre at best ending.

To me it seems that the only purpose of the show is to draw you in with an interesting backstory and then leave you utterly confused ... hoping the next episode will answer your questions (Hint: It wont).

All in all if you want good art and sound and a good opening but nothing else that makes sense Divine Gate is for you. If not don't waste your time watching 12 episodes of this.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
no
Don't even think about watching this, its not worth your time
Characters
These are perhaps one of the most one dimensional characters that i have seen in a while. Whats worse is how hard the writers try to make the characters interesting with backstories. I adore characters that have a solid backstory that adds to their progression. This way I can see and appreciate how far a character has grown and changed. This doesn't happen with this show. The characters have nothing to them but their backstories. After a while these characters become so unenjoyable because of their obsession with their ... past that they becomes really cheesy and unbelievable.
And don't even get me started on the main protagonist. Hes probably the most annoying "tragic" character there is.
Art
while at first seems appealing it later dissolves into cgi the anime and becomes almost unbearable to watch. They tried to make the anime artistic by creating bright colors with the backgrounds and the characters but it really didn't work.
Sound
Boring. Only the opening is fun but that's about the only thing I can give props to this show. I remember nothing about the soundtrack and I just finished watching the thing.
Story
Confusing and ends with a lackluster ending with what I guess can be considered a cliffhanger. This maybe would have worked better if this show would have been expanded but I kind of doubt it. Whats frustrating about this story is how hard they tried to make it philosophical with its constant dialogue of choice and the idea of changing the future. With a setting and characters that seem stuck in the past this really doesn't really work.
So in conclusion
nope
Maybe watch this if your drunk and you want to laugh at a really bad show

Divine Gate is an asshole; a literal asshole that opens and closes like a tunnel, and inside are all the worms and dried shit from when someone eats shrimp at a local diner, much like yours unless you're one of those special snowflakes who rinse their asses. In other words, it's full of shit.

Now let me be the first to admit that I was pumped for this. I saw the PVs, I liked the art of the phone game and fanboyed at the fact that HITORIE was doing the opening song. And who could blame me for feeling this way? I wasn't expecting a lot ... but I was expecting something. Lo and behold, the first episode was one huge edgefest. And from then on, I stopped caring. So why am I writing this review? Basically, to inform you, the potential viewer, to stay the fuck away.

Let's start with the story. In its premiere, Divine Gate introduces us to a world of... I have no fucking idea. And that, right there, ladies and gents, is the biggest problem of Divine Gate. In a fantasy type story, it's mandatory that you explain the way your world works in a smooth and organized way, having important information matter to the viewer and giving the details early on without going through an infodump and most series do this through good use of exposition, much like Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and even Sword Art Online. Divine Gate explains diddly-fucking-squat. I can't call the world building anything because there is none in the first place! They show us all these neat aspects but put zero effort into explaining what they are, how they work or why we should give a fuck in the first place! And the results? Plot holes as far as the eye can see! The story takes all different kinds of directions that constantly create these subplots that ultimately amount to nothing. To give an example, this is what the usual Divine Gate episode boils down to:

- Characters are doing something
- Characters are suddenly doing something else
- Several second shot of some aspect of the world we've never seen before nor will we ever see again
- Back to doing the characters being ass
- Something bad happens
- Resolved with shitty action
- Several minutes of edgy dialogue
- Characters being ass again
- Roll credits

On the topic of the characters, they all suck ass. Let's start off with our beloved main character who can out edge even the roughest square in the galaxy, Aoto. While he is your stereotypical emo kid with a darker than darkness itself past, the creators decided they wanted to make him worse by making him probably the edgiest character in the entire season. How edgy you ask? Throughout episode, we're shown him eating only cold food so someone found the reason why. And the answer? Drumrolls please!!--------- "Just like your cold heart, you can only eat cold food". Yes, it was even better than you could ever possibly imagine! Thanks to this new discovery, scientists everywhere decided to add an entirely new shape into the world of geometry called the Aotogon, consisting of an infinite amount of refined edges only possible in a fucking anime. The rest of the cast were stereotypical and awfully one-note with piss-poor development and just as shitty dialogue, including edgy fire-user, edgy staff-user, edgy-trio no one cares about, edgy-round knights, edgy-male saber, edgy- evil clown, edgy-deities, edgy-top hat, edgy-dad, edgy-brother, edgy-BFF and fucking Santa Claus.

Now I have a bad habit of writing reviews for shitty series that just happen to have good art and animation, but not in Divine Gate. Studio Pierrot has proved time and time again just how shitty they've been doing the past few years. Ever since Naruto saw its end, the quality of animation and direction deteriorated and this is has never been more evident in this show. The CGI looks terribly dated and unpleasing to the eye as were the colors that didn't have a good sense of contrast. The animation itself is fuzzy, glitchy and makes for some pretty bad action sequences and this is mostly the fault of the direction which didn't stand out at all and was sub-par at best. The score is overall unmemorable save for a few piano pieces that are stuck in my head at the moment that I may forget very soon.
We're finally boiled down to the question, does Divine Gate have any merits? Yes, it does. And that was with the opening song, HITORIE's One Me Two Hearts. If I had to choose the best opening of the season, it was definitely this. It sucks the viewer right into the series through some decent imagery before going right into the chorus with a huge BOOM! "NEE! SONO KOKORO KAISHITE YO, TOBIRA WO AKETE SHIMAU KARA!". Not a reason to watch, but is still worthy of acknowledgement.

So did I enjoy Divine Gate?
...Meh. It's easy to stop caring about the series and just laugh at everything bad about it. It may make you want to stop living but I can assure you, this show can only go so far.

Overall, shitty world building, shitty characters and pretty bad production has earned this series a 3/10. I do not recommend this series to anyone unless you're a masochist or if Konosuba wasn't funny enough for you.

i really liked the story and the characters and i thougt that this whole driver-thing could be nice for some fight but i waited there was some really nice action but not really one fight. Divine gate busted weith a bunch of cool characters like Oz who was seen about 3 times and characters like gin you could see him in background after that for 5 ep did he come up again and is kind of a main character. to be honest i love this series i love the idea of gods, a girl with the power to trap someone in a theater,this ... aoto and Ariton brother strory,the drivers are soo cool and the story nice too so was the grapics but it endet up being crap because the throw it all at once because there had money problems so many backgrounds are missing and the story went reall soon over BUT i hope there is a second season with more( or just please 1) driver fight more action and a story which is not so : put it all in one ep"

So, like most of my current reviews, I'll mention beforehand that I'm not a huge anime watcher --

-- This is my old review, updated to reflect the end of the series --


So, I did enjoy this anime, despite it's large amount of flaws, which a number of the reviews here point out.

I did like the characters, the sounds, the animation and even the story, but that's just me; It was easy enough for me to watch and enjoy.

I am going to point out the numerous flaws though:
...
The characters are extremely cliché once you look at them and even after 9 episodes I still had no clue as to who was meant to be the main protagonist.

We later sort-of understand that Aoto, Midori and Akane are all protagonists.

In the first episodes we think it's Aoto, then we have episodes purely for Akane and the same goes for Midori - so we think, "ok the trio are all MCs", but then we have other members of the academy popping up more and more - the "rival team" so-to-speak, then we have episodes centred solely on Arthur; it's a jumbled mess.

Then we have character's backstories being shown, mentioned, teased, whichever.

We get to understand why Aoto is like he is, but not why he wants to go to the Divine Gate - as he keeps saying he has no wish and it becomes really confusing.

We then get a crumb of supposed backstory for Akane and Midori, but these don't really explain their pasts, but more explain why they're heading for the Divine Gate.

Aoto is the cliché abused child who has never known love or happiness

Akane is quite literally the hot-headed (and a fire user, go figure), get-angry, daddy issues character

Midori is the always smiling happy-go-lucky type who is filled with regret after mis-treating her "best" friend.

We then get dumped into an almost different storyline with Arthur and his knights of the round table aiming to destroy the Divine Gate

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we don't really know what the Divine Gate quite is (it merged the worlds and grants wishes) - where did it come from?

Who are Loki and Oz meant to be exactly? What is up with Loki? Where did Shakespeare come from?

I think this anime tried to squeeze way too much into its short running time and it ruined any order or understanding the story could have had.

Overall, I did enjoy watching it, but I just didn't take much notice of the bigger picture of the storyline, I just followed what went on episode by episode.

At first i just watched it hoping maybe it's going to go somewhere. But the farther i got in the episodes the more I realized i have no clue whats going on any more, Because i realized how rushed the plot was. I wasn't even connected to any characters. To me it seems like the creators tried to smash everything together into only 12 episodes, But doing that ruined the plot for me and probably many others. If it would have be slower paced and slowly getting to know the characters and story it might have been a fine anime at least. This anime is ... going in my dropped list, because i can't continue to watch this.

Watching Divine Gate is like watching a train filled with feces crash in slow-motion while listening to some angsty teenager's self-reflective interpretation of Linkin Park. You know the outcome, you know it will inevitably wind up as a shit storm, but you can't stop watching.

In the first thirty seconds of the show, it's established that our main character, Aoi-- if not the entire story-- is edgy. Like, walking-on-knives-and-the-rain-hides-the-tears-in-my-eyes-and-I-can't-stop-writing-poetry level edge. I'm not joking. Not even Edgar Allen Poe would be able to take this shit seriously.
But hey, who cares what the protagonist is like as long as the supporting cast and the plot's decent? It ... doesn't matter if every episode has a three minute narration overemphasizing how depressed these kids as long as they're well-developed chara--

Haha, nope.

Roll call, please.
We've got a depressed, melodramatic water-wielding MC, the girl on the track team who just found out she was running from, the typical hot-headed flame master, three useless friends, a mascot character that appears twice, King Arthur, Loki, Santa, visual kei/steampunk Wizard of Oz characters, and illiterate loli Shakespeare (I really wish I was joking). So, in short, a chaotic clusterfuck. Oh, and there're twenty other characters who are introduced and have noteworthy character designs only to later take a seat on the bleachers thanks to plot.

Wait, wait, plot? Which plot are we talking about? There are so many plotlines that are started and dropped that's it's almost impossible to make any sense of this story. I felt like I was watching an animated adoption of a school play where all of the actors want to add their own ideas to spice things up but none of them are on the same wavelength.

This anime is terrible. It's God-awful. It's the worst thing to have ever graced my computer screen, and, let me tell you, I've looked up some pretty weird stuff. It's so bad, yet.... yet I found myself enjoying Divine Gate in spite of--no, because of how terrible it is.

Divine Gate, An anime with a poorly executed story and characters so bland I fell asleep while watching. This was by far one of the most disappointing anime out of the winter 2016 anime season I have watched.

Story: 3/10
The story starts off so confusing. I could find myself getting interested to see what this "Divine Gate" is. But the whole entire anime is just bullshit. The "Divine Gate" they keep talking over and over about is really just a plot device to attempt a actual "story" with a dark and edgy feel to it, but so far I'm not buying any of this. ... Plus, they give you a whole bunch of information dumps that fly from one place to another. It almost seemed like the writers were just thinking of ideas as they go along.

Art: 6/10
I actually really liked the art since it's not something I see often. It definitely gave me a different feel from other anime which is one of the main reasons I kept watching this anime.

Animation: 5/10
The animation was meh. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. The fighting scenes were one of the things that annoyed me about this anime. It would switch from 2D to 3D animation when doing the fighting scenes and that really bothered me.

Sound: 7/10
The sound was good. I could hear things clearly with the seiyuus making up for the piss poor characters with their voice acting. The op and ed for this anime were catchy and were nice to listen to.

Characters: 2/10
OMFG THE CHARACTERS ARE THE WORSE THING ABOUT THIS ANIME. They are so cliche that it's not even funny. You could literally go find most of these character types in other anime. Aoto is a boy with a dark past, Akane is some hot tempered kid with a father complex, and Midori is supposed to be a kind hearted girl with "secrets". I was just laughing at how bad it was. Then, there are a whole bunch of other characters that were so forgettable that I was like " What was your name again?" Seriously, these characters were horribly bland.

Enjoyment: 3/10
Most of the time when I'm watching an episode I'm just waiting for it to end. I didn't enjoy this at all. I could even find myself cringing throughout this whole experience.

Overall: 4/10
This anime could've been great. It had a lot of potential but it was just poorly executed with its story and characters. If you have nothing else to do you can watch this anime, otherwise I'd skip this one and watch something better.

divine gate for me is basically the most confusing anime in term of story and character progression that i felt after watching it untill the end

to be honest this anime start pretty well, the fighting look good, the animation good and i kinda like the op,and the story look promising about a sillent type mc that gradually find new happines with the other 2 protagonist and fight together after being convicted murdering his parent(that probably deserve it if you watch it till the end), the progression of the mc itself took half a season to do it, but after it this anime completely rushed the ... story&character progressio, and end up being bad, confussing half until the end of the season, and ended up with just unsitasfying ending ever

this anime will probably good if the studio did not rushed it and make a appropiate character,story progession (i dont mind watching 2 season of good anime)

overall this is a good and promising anime that ended up being bad because the studio rushed half until the end of it

Have you ever had a good idea, but didn't know how to go about making that idea real? That's essentially what this anime is.

Divine Gate looked so promising at the beginning of the season, only to fail and disappoint nearly anyone and everyone who's watched it.

The story is 3/10. They story revolves around the Divine Gate (roll credits!) which is said to grant any one wish you want. However, after a few episodes of entirely pointless character development, one of the side characters wishes to destroy it. Then there's whole ordeal with gods and humans not agreeing and it's all very bland and inefficient.

The ... art is 8/10. The one good thing I will give credit to this anime for is the art style. Well designed animes are becoming more common, and this one meets the quota. Interesting bold-shaded style made watching this at least slightly more enjoyable.

The sound is 5/10. While the OP and ED are both okay, everything else was just... mediocre. There wasn't anything that really stood out and that was disappointing.

The characters are 3/10. Lord have mercy on anyone who forces themselves to finish this anime like I did. They spend the first three episodes (25% ffs) trying to explain why one of the main characters is so gloomy and depressed, while they inevitable go over it AGAIN through backstory. To further add insult to injury, they do this for almost EVERY relevant character. It's painful, the characters are bland, irritating, and just frustrating to watch.

The enjoyment is 3/10. I had such high hopes for this anime and it fell apart after the first three episodes. You should never have to force yourself to watch a 20 minute episode each week, but this anime makes you. The only reason I finished this is because I don't like to drop anything. If I were to drop anime though, this would be one of them.

The overall score is 4/10. Divine Gate had so much potential, and just fell apart with the pointless plot and storyline. The characters, sounds, and enjoyment were just not there. It was hard to want to like this. The one saving grace is that the art style is quite good.

Should you watch Divine Gate? The answer is no, unless you enjoy being a masochist.

I've watched a lot of anime. But, this is the first time I'm actually bothering to write a review. That's how bad this one was. I dropped it thrice on the first ep before finally deciding to complete it. Bad concepts. Generic. Trying too hard to impress with "deep" dark extremely edgy inner monologue-like moments and failing spectacularly. The animation was pretty, but that should be a given at this day and age. I guess I wouldn't be hating it so much if I had not watched it right after katanagatari which I really enjoyed. Maybe I'll go rewatch SAO and then rewatch this (never) ... so I can get a complete and unbiased picture of how bad it is.

TLDR: It's nothing special. Actually it's special in how bad it is. Do not watch. Do not read the synopsis. DO recommend it to people you do not like. Tell em it's the new DB.

That's literally what I define a "Fail-Ambitious" project: those kind of things that are made thinking to create a masterpiece, and then fail really hard, so hard that even a blind guy would get how bad is this show by only listening to the dialogues...
The artwork looked to be good even if computer based, a rare thing that deceived me, but the more episodes I would watch the more I would be disappointed.
The story has no sense, character are so freaking stereotyped and poor characteryzed to make me ill.. overall a boring show that made me mad for losing 12x24min of my life...

What to do oh what to do. I completed 200 anime so props to myself for that. Cause of that I probably should being reviewing that or my 201st but no. Instead, I must force myself to recall the horrors of the anime with one of the most annoying narrators in my entire existence....Divine Gate.

I have no history with this. I don't know anything about the mobile game this is based off of. This is something that purely caught my interest and that's about it. Let's just get this over with as I do another review after a long time of not doing them....oh yeah ... spoiler warning I guess cause I might spoil something....on with the review

Story:......Where the holy f*ck do I begin....Guess the fact that this show is about some gate that has been around for decades or centuries in this world and can granted any wish to those who open it. This special gate is known as....ahem...THE DIVINE GATE! THE HOLY GRAIL...THE CREAM OF THE CROP OF ALL GATES...ALL THE MAGICAL BEING IN THE UNIVERSE IN EVERY ANIME EVER! HA! NOTHING IS MORE SUPREME THEN THY DIVINE GATE! THOU SHALL BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP IT! WORSHIP THIS HOLY GATE YOU UNGRATEFUL SWINES! WORSHIP IT I SAY! WORSHIP!
....
....
....Now moving on the story has 3 main characters (If you think it is 6 based off the image or poster or whatever of six people and the opening which highlights them, then you are sorely mistaken). We have Aoto the brooding emo, Akane are obligatory spiky red hair protagonist and Midori the green hair cheerful one of the 3 all who have their own wishes and wish be the first person to reach the gate as the gate will granted that persons wish. They aren't the only ones though as the headmaster of their academy Arthur who has his own wish he wishes to achieve with the help of his Knights of the Round Table (It's called knights of round in the anime but let's be real. It's based off the Knights of the round table) along with those 3 other very 'important' adapters on the cover with our heroes Ginji, Hikari and Yukari along with Loki and Oz. let's not forget the 3 spirit gypsies...fairies....ah whatever f*ck it.

This story is a clustered mess. Multiple plot threads that go unanswered, a plot that while not original is semi interesting but feels like it was glued together sometimes at the last minute..extremely underdeveloped character development, the bland characters we follow in the story...the fact it try's to be deep and symbolic when it really isn't if we are being honest...the f*cking cop out at the end of the anime and....the narrator. Dear god the narrator. The narrator tries to give you them feels. From trying to explain motives, to explaining character personalities in a nutshell (trust me I'll get to that soon enough.) or plain random stuff if they aren't explaining events. I can normally deal with a narrator. Practically have been hearing the Pokemon narrator for most of my life. I can deal with Bobobo-bo-Bo-bobo's narrator. I could deal with JoJo's Narrator. Hell I could sit through the 4kids One Piece narrator better and I hate the 4kids dub of that with a passion. But this?! This has to be the most annoying and most hysterical narrator I have heard in a long time. The narration either has you laughing out loud at how deep and symbolic it will try to be or have have you hitting your head against a brick wall. The narrator really serves no purpose to the show and probably should have been scrapped.

Art- This anime was produced by everyone's favorite punching bag that isn't Toei, Studio Pierrot and honestly...It's actually alright. It's not anything stellar or breath taking and I don't hate Pierrot with a Firey passion like some people do so I got to be honest when I say I have no major issue with it. I have an issue with the CGI. Not Skeleter Sh*t or Mayioga laughable levels of bad but it isn't good. It's subpar-to bad. Other then that I have no major complaints.

Sounds: If there is one thing I got out of this anime...it has a kick ass opening. The opening is honestly the only thing that kept me watching at this point when I was seeing the anime.i love it. The ending is okay and seeing the fact I watched the dub, the cast was alright for it. Not great but not horrible.

Characters: Step right up! Step right up! We got your underdeveloped characters here. From the blonde emo Aoto whose is called a parent killer cause his brother went AWOL and he took the blame, to the Akane who has daddy issues all the way to Midori who seeks to find her childhood best friend and is arguably the blandest of the mcs. The 2nd place price is Arthur who seeks to destroy the gate and bring peace to the world along Loki, the lone shining star in this entire anime as the villain and Oz.....f*ck Oz.

We then have the bronze prizes as....no you know what no. I'll just do my own narration of how the narrator described these 3 'important' characters who happen to be adapter like our main cast.

Here we go. Ginji personality description (as told by the narrtor of the show and reinterpret by yours truly)

"The boy didn't give a sh*t about anything in the world. Thus, as he didn't give a sh*t about the world and cares for nothing in it."

Hikari-
"The girl with blonde hair who has a smile plastered on her face cause we always need that obligatory happy, cheerful, in LaLa land smiling girl in our animus. Nothing damping her mood as she somehow gets people to smile come rain or shine.

Yukari-
"She broods in the night, loving it but hating the daytime. More emo then Aoto was at the beginning, at night she dons the persona of the hero of the night. She goes out and says with pride every night..."
"I'm batgirl....yeah..."

Such wonder and deep characters here don't you think. So deep that the narrator feels the need to describe their personalities to us. The most deepest characters and the most interesting non development of character you will ever see. To this day it amazes to how the characters and their astonishing development came to be. Hell it might need further study since it always feels like it is non existent. Even the 1st place prize MCs development is questionable at best. Such great writing I tell you what.

Overall- This was an anime that went to alright to bad in a heart beat. It definitely isn't anywhere near the likes of School Days, Pupa or Idea Factories Turd sandwiches but it is still bad. The cluster story, the bad characters the god awful narrator and so on. Only things I got out of this was the animation and the kick ass opening. It's a 4/10 anime to me. If you like great, I am not stopping you since this is just my silly opinion written in a review. If you agree with me alright. If you want to check it out, I ain't stopping you. But overall this anime was just bad. It started off alright and seemed to get worst, especially towards the end.

That is all I have to say. If you like my review great. If you hate it...I won't lose any sleep, we just got to agree to disagree. With that being said I am out. Peace people

Divine gate is an anime that is anything but loved. It's something new comes can enjoy, but that's the best I can say. I did enjoy parts of this show.

To start off with the best part, I'd say I really liked the main characters of this show. I thought they were good characters with good backstories. I even liked a few of the side characters. The problem is that there are multiple side characters that aren't very well fleshed out, because of the short length of the series.

The concept of the series is also pretty good, but yet again, doesn't get enough time to flesh ... everything out. There are plot points that look important, but mean nothing. There are characters who just make decisions without any logic. There are also characters who are too overpowered.

I liked the music of the series.

The art style is pretty good, but none if the animation is that great. Fight scenes are pretty bad. There was one fight that was one guy spamming the exact same attack repeatedly. There are some decent fights, but those ones are scarce. The artwork for the series made me think it was going to be a shonen action series, which would've been better in my opinion.

The ending really takes the cake though, I'm going to spoil anything other than that they wanted a sequel. It's highly unlikely at this point, but they wanted one.

The series tends to be all over the place in every category. I tried to like it, but kept thinking of Guilty Crown, which has similar problems to this show.

I honestly can't recommend this show to anyone, it has nice moments, but fails in a lot of places for me. If you want to try it, that's fine, but proceed with caution.

When I think about it this anime reminds me a lot of the TARDIS, it has so much bullshit crammed into it that when i was finished I had to take a step back just to make sure it was only 12 episodes. Despite its standard length this show manages to cram in every cliche, drawn out fight scene and mythological creature to create a mixture of so many things its difficult to care about any of them.

Let's start with characters. The main protagonist is a typical, emotionally detached hero with a nondescript tragic backstory that manages to tell you nothing about him. To back ... him up we have your typical moe female support who wants to see the good in him and the boy she doesn't realise is in love with her. For supporting characters we have every mythological figure ever. From the norse gods to Merlin to freacking Santa Claus this show has about forty of them, and tries to develop all of the leaving us with no one to actually care about.

Now for the story. For this part I will only mention events and details revealed in the first episode. The main characters (and others as well) have elemental powers allowing them to perform attacks and even for weapons which (naturally) get bigger as the characters get stronger. The story centres around this "divine gate" which, if found, will grant anyone one wish. Everyone has something hey would really want to wish for but I honestly couldn't tell you any of them because, once again, they gave us way too much in very little time. Especially considering they actually go to find it less than halfway though the series. From their on it is a string of anti-climaxs and long, draw out battle scenes.

The best parts of this anime are the art and music. The art style is beautiful, relying on its ability to change the colour theme to portray the mood of a scene very well, while still maintaining a constant underlying style. Both the opening and ending songs are very well put together and pleasant to listen to. During the anime the music is mostly out of the way but like with the art style helps set the mood of a scene very well.

Overall i would have a hard tim recommending this anime to anyone. Its very boring and difficult to follow either the characters or story and you won't have a fun time doing so. The OP is worth giving a listen though.

Divine Gate was an average sci-fi fantasy watch, until the ending rendered it unsatisfying. The characters clearly had an objective, but they never solved anything in the end. All the build up was wasted and essentially the story went back to square one.

The characters were fine, but not groundbreaking and the premise seemed fun at first until it reach generic territory. The trio were typical: we got energetic boy, slightly serious boy with a traumatic past, and happy girl with friendship issues. Together they fight to fulfill the goals they will fail to accomplish anyway.

The villain was also typical and the adult characters were typically ... like anime adults with too much time on their hands. The artwork and animation weren't special and the OST was forgettable.

Overall, it's not an awful show but rather a forgettable show that could've fleshed out its story.

First review. Brief review because I don't want to waste too much of my time in writing this. Reviewing only because this anime was so bad that it stuck out to me. .

The only reason why I toughed it out and finished this entire anime was because of its opening song. Other than that, the overall anime was lackluster.

Watching the first episode led me to believe that this anime had a lot of potential. There were a lot of interesting ideas that could have been explored and further developed. However, as I watched on, I realized that this anime carried a lot of elements that ... are strikingly similar to other animes. Firstly, the concept of this anime very closely resembled Fullmetal Alchemist. It resembled it so closely that it might as well have been a rip-off. Secondly, the three main characters' super powers very much reminded me of the starter Pokemon powers (fire, water, grass). Like really? They couldn't have wielded any other type of super power? And even if they didn't, couldn't the characters have utilized their powers more? Why did they even train to develop their super powers if they didn't even do anything with it in the end? It felt like a pointless waste of time.

Tl;dr - The director of this anime did a poor job in developing its concept. The story felt rushed. The characters didn't have any development. The dialogue was unsophisticated, even though the concept behind the Divine Gate was supposed to have a philosophical edge. Just watch FMA instead of this rip-off of an anime.

Now this shows promised a lot but failed to deliver.The main problem with this anime is how it tries to be phylosophical and deep although being just a typical shounen anime. The first annoying thing you will notice is lot of narration describing what characters feel instead of showing this to way in other ways. The other big problem is the last episodes. They fight to the end to change their fate and break free from destiny and then give up and accept being controlled by the Council. This looks like NWO propaganda. They could have changed the world so that there is ... no more superpowers and that all the effects of the gates were gone, the council and the so called gods destroyed and no more gate, but no they decided to change themselves even though as long as they leave their fates to be controlled they cannot. This is bs. Is like running a race and when winning declining the prize. Who does that? The whole is all about the journey so prevalent in buddhist phylosophies is the biggest piece of bs ever.

Dropped 4 episodes in.

What a disaster. Story is all over the place and you can barely comprehend what is going on. Art and music is fine, but the story and characters make this anime physically painful to watch - especially the characters. They are so cliche and annoying, especially the almighty edge lord in blue. It's like they threw in Sasuke from Naruto and upped his edginess as if the viewers would like that sort of thing. Then we have the hot headed kid in red who's constantly being loud and it just gave me a headache - think Naruto.

Don't waste your time ... watching this.